The international evaluation committee of IFRAF met on November 5 and 6 2009 to examine the IFRAF activities nearly 4 years after the launch of the institute. .

The committee members are :

• Wolfgang Ketterle, MIT – USA
• Immanuel Bloch, Max Planck Institute – Germany
• Wolgang Ertmer, Université Leibniz – Germany
• Bertrand Girard, CNRS - France
• Sandro Stringari, Université de Trento – Italy

The president is Wolfgang Ketterle, Nobel Prize winner for physics in 2001.

The committee first spent one day at Institut d’Optique for on oral presentation of a few recent highlights, and then for a workshop gathering all IFRAF members in a poster session.

The next day the committee could discuss with the IFRAF Directoire after listening to Michèle Leduc’s presentation of the management and of the future strategic orientations of IFRAF.

In conclusion the committee prepared a report which first of all outlines the excellence of the numerous scientific results. They also noticed the ongoing technological developments. They were impressed by the collaborative spirit and the mutual exchanges at work between various teams through different laboratories.

The management of the Institute was also positively evaluated. The committee recommanded the follow up of IFRAF with a renewed contract and suggested an increase of budget and the incorporation of new teams.